Still filled with nostalgia from leaving my family behind, I went through the emigration procedures and eventually boarded the plane about an hour after saying goodbye to my parents and two younger siblings. I was spent, and soon after the plane successfully made an ascent to the desired altitude in the dark clouds, I began to feel claustrophobic. The cabin of the British airways plane that was conveying me to London, conveying me to another life with my older sister and her husband, was cramped, smaller than any other I ever flew. The seats, three deep, were about the size of those plastic party chairs of a variety of colours, around which we haltingly danced the chair dance game at those parties of long ago. I wondered how uncomfortable it would be for the mammoth female sitting next to me, I was finding it uncomfortable enough, and to imagine that I am about the size of a strand of boiled spaghetti. The backs of the chairs were straight as rods and just as rigid. And legroom- The airline when making design specifications for the aircraft had, I guessed, simply decided that passengers in economy had no use for that on the five and a half hour journey that it took from Lagos to London, Heathrow.
I tried to see a movie on the little screen in front of me, I was excited to see that they had Slumdog Millionaire, a recent multi award winning movie, on the in-flight entertainment movie list and I decided to see it, regardless of the fact that I had spent a very frantic three hours, the day before my flight, trying to beat the wiles of PHCN by viewing the movie on a laptop. Exhaustion took over, and I only realized I had fallen asleep when I was seduced awake by the uncanny knowledge that snacks were been served. I got mine from the cabin attendant, and began viewing another movie, The Secret Life of Bees, while wincing at the sweet, spicy taste of the pretzels I was snacking on. The madam sitting next to me, perhaps thinking I was in need of more nutrition graciously handed me her own pack of pretzels, I was too tired to argue that I wasn’t enjoying it enough to desire seconds, so just as graciously I accepted, and proceeded to dump it along with the litter when the attendants came collecting.
A few minutes into the movie and deciding it was rather slow, I switched of the entertainment unit and shut my eyes. The Public Address system of the plane woke me after a while as the captain announced that we were approaching London. I continued my movie but kept being interrupted by programmed information on the estimated distance from, and temperature at destination- eight degrees, I wondered how cold that might be because even the twenty three degrees my younger sister absolutely insisted on in our shared bedroom at home reduced me to shivers after about thirty minutes. I eventually gave up acquainting myself with the secret life of bees as the cabin was prepared for landing by the flight attendants.
We landed in rainy London, I went groggily through immigration, tiredness stifling the fear my sister had expressed about the possibility of my being deported for the flimsiest of reasons, this fear having been inflicted by her penchant for viewing episodes of UK Border Force from the comfort of her east London abode. I scaled through immigration, tried to get in touch with my new immediate family without success, stepped out into the cold outside the airport, and finding myself at the mercy of the wily wind, as it stroked my scalp with its feathery fingers, and playfully pushed my steps faster, I hopped a taxi.
A black taxi, one I’d been expressly warned by my sister to avoid, one that reads a meter, one whose fare you might have to get a loan to pay if you were unlucky enough to get snagged in traffic. But I needed a warm place; my slightly oversized jacket was making space for the London breeze and my torso was soon tickled, my nipples puckering to two painful points in acknowledgment of the cold. A black cab was all I, the JJC could find for a warm place at the time, and I decided it couldn’t be as bad as she had made out; UK border wasn’t like she had feared after all. I settled in the back seat, and began the drive.
Half way through I realized I had to call to let my sister know I was on my way home already. I had no airtime on my MTN sim, though it had now conveniently switched to the T-mobile network to enable me make UK calls. I had exhausted my airtime the night before saying unnecessary last minute goodbyes to every friend I could think of while I was waiting for the plane to push back. So now desperation forced me to discard any hang-ups about begging my cab man for use of his phone. Thrice I tried, and thrice he seemed to not understand my demands, I wondered if my Nigerian accented English was so difficult to comprehend; but who was he to complain or discriminate, I thought, he hardly possessed a sterling Queen’s speech himself, as his English was of the Pakistani variety. I gave it a rest for a while but eventually my need to reassure my sister won out and I made new attempts, enunciating determinedly. Persistence won, and he grudgingly dialled her number for me on his phone. She raved her annoyance and even attempted to persuade the driver to drop me off halfway in order to avoid the exorbitant fare. She gave up eventually, but not after injecting me with a healthy dose of panic.
My ride was ruined; my enjoyment of the lovely cocoon of warmth deserted me. I stopped admiring the scenic view and old structures of the city and fastened my eyes to the meter, my heart breaking in instalments at every change on the fare indicator. My heart beat accelerating as the figures leaped with every hundred meters we covered. And oh, the red lights! I cursed London, this place where there was a red-light at every corner, every turn, every few yards. I was in trouble. I was resigned to going bankrupt; starting a new life begging for handouts and living from hand to mouth. We crawled home through narrow roads, often having to stop to allow traffic flow from the opposite direction and still the red characters of the meter flashed at me like swivelling neon signs.
The journey seemed interminable, I began to wonder if the cab man took a longer route to get me to pay more, but no, my rational mind said that could only happen in Lagos. My driver seemed lost; I was about to ask him if he knew where he was headed when he proved to be truly lost, making a couple of wrong turns and then retracing his way. ‘On my money!?’ I wanted to explode in anger, finally happening on a reason to avoid paying the fare which had already climbed above the limit I considered expensive. But his uncertainty was only for a beat, definitely not the escape I sought. A minute’s hesitation was not enough reason to abscond with his fare, I thought fairly, not that I imagined I would have gotten away with it too. In a few minutes we were on Forest road, tracing my address. I pointed the house to him and almost tore at my hair in frustration as he zoomed past the house, the engine still running, the meter still running, the numbers still changing on the indicator. He reversed, and finally stopped in front of the right house, and I hopped out as he blessedly shut the meter. 88.80 pounds, he rounded it up to 90, phew! Many pounds over my limit, a considerable portion of the money I had to my name. Double what I’d have paid if I had been patient enough to have my sister send a cab over, that’s if I’d have paid at all, she probably would have footed the bill. I didn’t know if to cry at the waste or rejoice at having escaped bankruptcy.
I sighed as knocked on the front door of number 235 and welcomed myself to London.
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